Portland Ranks the Worst for Women in Technology

In the U.S,, women only claim 26% of tech jobs nationally. They make 85% of what men earn and the numbers for women working in technology in Portland have the greatest challenges of the top cities in America ranked in the study.

For Portland, the numbers are weak across the board, but in some of the categories Portland's opportunities for women in tech is morbid.

There is an emerging infrastructure -- network for women in technology. PDXWIT was started by megan Bigelow and Kasey Jones and the organization offers events, a peer network and job boards.

Here Are Portland's Numbers

Gender Pay Gap:

80.1%

Income After Housing Cost:

$43,281

Tech Jobs Filled by Women:

24%

3-year Tech Employment Growth

5%

In comparision Detriots growth has been 32% and San Francisco is 24%.

SEE METHODOLOGY BELOW

Data and Methodology

To find the best cities for women in tech, SmartAsset looked at U.S. Census Bureau statistics on women and men in “computer and mathematical occupations” throughout the U.S.1 Our analysis considered 58 of the largest U.S. cities – any city in which the tech workforce was large enough for statistically significant Census survey results. For each of those 58 cities, we calculated the following four metrics:

Women as a percentage of the tech workforce.

Gender pay gap in tech.

Income after housing costs. (Median income for women in computer and mathematical occupations minus typical housing costs such as real estate taxes, insurance and mortgage payments.)

Three year tech employment growth. This statistic includes tech jobs for both men and women.

We ranked each of the 58 cities in our analysis according to these four metrics (the full list of cities and data for each metric is at the end of the article). We then averaged those rankings, giving half weight to tech employment growth and full weight to the other three metrics.

Lastly, we calculated an index score based on those averages. A city ranked first in each category would score a perfect 100, while a city ranked last in each category would score a zero. A score that is closer to 100 reflects a better tech employment environment for women.

Data used in our analysis comes from the U.S. Census Bureau American Communities Survey for 2014 the most recent year for which data is available. Three-year comparison data comes from the 2011 survey.